This research was conducted to investigate the influence of various organic substrates on growth and yield of ginseng seedling grown organically in the closed plastic house. The pH and EC of substrates used for organically ginseng cultivation ranged 5.93~6.78 and 0.03~0.15 dS/m respectively. The concentrations -N and -N respectively was 14.01~68.63 mg/L, 5.60~58.83 mg/L. The average quantum of the closed plastic house was range from 10 to 16% of natural light. In July and August, the maximum temperature of the closed plastic house did not exceed 30 and the average temperature was maintained within 25 lower than the field because air conditioning ran. The PPV-1 and PPV-2 bed soil substrates produced higher stem length, stem diameter, shoot fresh weight and leaf area than those of conventional culture. In PPV-2 bed soil substrates, root fresh weight and root diameter was the highest. The root fresh weight of PPV-2 bed soil substrates in closed plastic house was maximum 25% heavier than the conventional cultivation. The results of this experiment will be utilized for making new substrate application for organic ginseng culture in the plastic house.

These studies were conducted to provide basic information on Korean ginseng cultivars and breeding lines (Panax ginseng C. A. Mey.) and to identify the variations that can be utilized in ginseng breeding programs. The agronomic characteristics was used to clarify the genetic relationships among Korean ginseng cultivars and breeding lines and to classify them into distinct genetic groups. Angle of petiole and number of fibrous root showed a wide variation from and 0~5, respectively. The average plant length was 54.2cm with a range of 37.9~64.8cm and the average stem diameter was 5.6mm with a range of 4.0~7.5mm. The average stem length was 31.9cm with a range of 21.8~37.9cm and the average root weight was 38.1 g with a range of 23.0~52.0 g. The 24 Korean ginseng cultivars and breeding lines were classified into 4 groups based on agronomic characteristics using the complete linkage cluster analysis. The I, II, III and IV groups included the 60.8%, 7.4%, 13.1% and 8.7% of the cultivars and breeding lines, respectively. The breeding lines in group I could be characterized as the group with the highest growth characters and yield components, such as plant length, stem diameter and root weight. The root weight, the yield component, had highly significant positive correlations with stem diameter, plant length and stem length.

In general, stepwise hot steaming process is known to be effective in improving its biological activities; however, not much employed in processing Codonopsis lanceolata due to its hardness. In this study, C. lanceolata was first pretreated with warm water at and for two hours, then steamed for 3 hours. Antioxidant activities of 70% ethanol extracts were compared with the extract from the water solvent: 41.58% vs 8.98% of DPPH radical scavenging activity in adding of steamed extract and water extract, respectively. Reducing power of steamed and fresh C. lanceolata were also measured as 1.39 and 0.71. Total poly phenolic of the steamed extract was estimated as 12.11mg/g, compared to 3.98mg/g fresh C. lanceolata. Total flavonoid contents were also obtained as 11.48mg/g, compared to 7.11mg/g of fresh C. lanceolata. In comparing phenolic acids profiles in the extract, in general higher amounts of gallic acid, trans-ferulic acid, vanillic acid were obtained possibly by easy release of active components during thermal processing, which results in better antioxidant activities than that of water extract. This findings can also be supported by result that the ethanol extract showed better activities than the water extract.

Dieldrin, one of the organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), induced the damages in neuroblastoma cells and DNA damages in lymphocytes. The ethanol extracts of A. sessiliflorus leaves were examined for the suppressive effects on the dieldrin-induced cell damages. Moreover, the extract was used to test whether it might inhibit the oxidative DNA damage of lymphocytes using Comet assay. The cell and DNA damage by dieldrin were suppressed in vitro upon treating A. sessiliflorus extract. This result suggests that A. sessiliflorus extract might be useful to reduce dieldrin toxicity.

The management and control of mineral nutrients is one of most important techniques to increase the productivity and the quality of Korean ginseng. The mineral nutrients are measured with different plant tissues and different growth stages of 2-year-old ginseng grown under hydroponic culture with two different temperatures. The content of N, P, Ca, and Mg were higher at low temperature in both leaves and roots than those at high temperature. However, the content of K was high in leaves at low temperature compared to that of high temperature, while it was not significantly different in roots. The uptake amounts of N and K was higher throughout the experimental period at low temperature in both leaves and roots than those at high temperature. However, the uptake amount of P was not clearly different between two different temperatures and among six different growth stages. The uptake amount of N, P, K was generally decreased in leaves from June to August, while it was increased in roots. The relationship between dry weight and mineral nutrients in leaves was appeared positive with N, K, Ca, and Mg, but negative P. In roots, N, K, Ca, and Mg were negative, showing that was positive with only P. Comparing the correlation coefficients among mineral nutrients in leaves, N and K were significantly positive correlation each other. P was significantly positive correlation with Na and Zn. In case of roots, N was highly significant positive correlation with K, Mg, and Mn, but P was negatively correlated with Ca, Cu, Na, Fe, and Zn.

This study was performed to determined the antioxidant activities, anticancer and immuno-activities of anthocyanin fraction from Rubus coreanus Miquel fruits (Bokbunja). Anthocyanin fraction extracted from Bokbunja revealed the presence of three anthocyanin components, which were tentatively identified as cyanidin 3-O-sambubioside, cyanidin 3-O-xylosylrutinoside and cyanidin 3-O-rutinoside using RP-HPLC/DAD/MS. The anthocyanin fraction from Bokbunja always showed reducing power and high scavenging activities against DPPH, hydroxy radical (OH) and superoxide anion radical () similar to general synthetic antioxidant and polyphenol compounds from plant origin. Anthocyanin fraction from Bokbunja showed high inhibition on proliferation of LNCaP and A549 cells and did not inhibit the proliferation of other cancer cells. Immuno-activities of Anthocyanin fraction from Bokbunja were investigated, it showed high promotion of human B and T cells growth about 50% and secretion of IL-6 and TNF- by treatment after 6 days. Over all, the result of the study suggest that anthocyanin fraction from Bokbunja displays antioxidant activity comparable to that general synthetic antioxidant, also, anthocyanin fraction from Bokbunja are expected to be good candidate for development into source of anticaner and immuno-activator agent in food industry.

This study was performed to enhance contents of low molecular weight ginsenoside Rh2 and Rg3 using an ultra high pressure and steaming process in wild cultured-Root in wild ginseng. For selective increase in contents of Rg3 and Rh2 in cultured wild ginseng roots, an ultra high extraction was applied at 500MPa for 20 min which was followed by steaming process at for 12 hr. It was revealed that contents of ginsenosides, Rb1, Rb2, Rc and Rd, were decreased with the complex process described above, whereas contents of ginsenoside Rh2 and Rg3 were increased up to 4.918 mg/g and 6.115 mg/g, respectively. In addition, concentration of benzo[]pyrene in extracts of the cultured wild ginseng roots treated by the complex process was 0.64 ppm but it was 0.78 ppm when it was treated with the steaming process. From the results, it was strongly suggested that low molecular weight ginsenosides, Rh2 and Rg3, are converted from Rb1, Rb2, Rc, and Rd which are easily broken down by an ultra high pressure and steaming process. This results indicate that an ultra high pressure and steaming process can selectively increase in contents of Rg3 and Rh2 in cultured wild ginseng roots and this process might enhance the utilization and values of cultured wild ginseng roots.

In this study, Expressed Sequence Tag-Simple Sequence Repeat (EST-SSR) analyses were used to clarify the genetic polymorphisms among Korean ginseng cultivars and breeding lines and to classify them into distinct genetic groups. Polymorphic and reproducible bands were produced by 14 primers out of total 30 primers used in this study. Fourteen EST-SSR loci generated a total of 123 bands. Amplified PCR products showed the highly reproducible banding patterns at 110~920 bp. The number of amplified bands for each EST-SSR primers ranged from 2 to 19 with a mean of 8.8 bands. P26 and P35 primers showed 13 and 12 banding patterns, respectively. The number of alleles for each EST-SSR locus ranged from 1.67 to 2.00 with a mean of 1.878 alleles. P34 and P60 primers showed the highest and the lowest genetic polymorphism, respectively. Cluster analysis based on genetic similarity estimated by EST-SSR markers classified Korean cultivars and breeding lines into 4 groups. Group included Gopoong and Chunpoong and 9 breeding lines (55%), group included 2 breeding lines (10%), group included 3 breeding lines (15%), group included Gumpoong and 3 breeding lines (20%). Consequently, the EST-SSR marker developed in this study may prove useful for the evaluation of genetic diversity and differentiation of Korean ginseng cultivars and breeding lines.